“Moving From Silence Into Language and Action”: Reimagining Advocacy With Black Motherscholars and Their Motherwork Across Multiple Contexts

• In Event: Parent Narratives of Advocacy, Guidance, and Racial Socialization

Abstract

This session features a collective of three Black motherscholar-activists, supporting families of color and their children across the landscape of disability services, clinical supports, special education, gifted education, and family-community connections. Audre Lorde’s call to activism frames this bricolage of qualitative inquiry (Denzin & Lincoln 2015), Black motherwork (Collins, 1990), and critical review, told through autoethnography, duoethnography, and storytelling. Frameworks from Black feminist and critical scholars are used to theorize about spaces of belonging and resistance inside and outside of the academy. Emphasized throughout is the dire need to support Black mother advocates in pursuit of equitable education, supports, and services for their children. As researchers and mothers, we also underscore ensuring the voices of families experiencing intersectionality are centered.

Authors

• Lydia L Ocasio-Stoutenburg, Pennsylvania State University

• Elizabeth Holliday Morgan, Morgan State University

• Keishana L. Barnes, University of Memphis